The House Across the Lake(89)

I pull out my phone, take a picture of Old Stubborn stretching out of the water, and send it to Eli.

He’s expecting my text.

The last part of the plan he’s aware of.

What’s next is known only to me.

First, I drop my phone into a Ziploc bag I snagged from the kitchen and seal it shut. The bag goes on my vacated seat, where hopefully it will be discovered if my text to Eli doesn’t go through. I then stand, sending the boat rocking slightly. It’s an effort to keep my balance as I move toward Len.

“I did what you asked,” he says. “Now you have to let me go.”

“Of course.” I pause. “Can I get a kiss first?”

I rush forward, pull him close, force my lips upon his. At first, the difference is jarring. I’d expected it to feel like kissing Len. But Katherine’s lips are thinner, more feminine, delicate. This small relief makes it easier to keep kissing the man I once loved but who now repulses me.

If Len senses that repulsion, he doesn’t show it.

Instead, he kisses me back.

Softly at first, then brutal in its intensity.

Burning air pushes from his mouth into mine, and I know what he’s doing.

It’s what I want him to do.

“Keep going,” I whisper against his lips. “Don’t stop. Leave her and take me instead.”

I push myself into him, my arms coiling around him, holding him tight. A moan escapes Len’s mouth, slides into mine, joins whatever else is pouring into me like bourbon from a bottle.

It’s silky. Exactly how Len described it. Like air and water combined. Weightless and yet so heavy.

The more of it that enters me, the more sluggish I feel. Soon I’m dizzy. Then weak. Then breathless. Then—oh, God—drowning in a scary mix of water and air and Len himself, his essence filling my lungs until I’m blind and choking and dropping to the boat’s floor.

For a second, everything is gone.

I feel nothing.

Finally, the full oblivion I’ve craved for fourteen months.

Then I come to, as startled as someone yanked back to life by CPR. My body spasms as I breathe in, then out. My eyes blink open to a sky made cotton candy pink by sunrise. Beside me, Len sits up.

Only it’s no longer Len.

It’s Katherine Royce.

I know because she gives me the same wide-eyed look of terror I saw when she came back to life the day we first met.

“What just happened?” she says, her voice unmistakably her own again.

“He’s out of you,” I say.

It’s clear Katherine knows enough about the situation to understand my meaning. Touching her face, her throat, her lips, she says, “Are you sure?”

I am. Len is inside me now. I feel him there, as invasive as a virus. I might look fine on the outside, but inside I’m no longer fully myself.

I’m changing.

Quickly.

“Here’s what I need you to do.” I talk fast, afraid I won’t have control over my voice for much longer. Already Len is winding his way through my system. He’s done this before. He now knows where to go and what to control. “Take the boat to Boone’s place. Eli will be there. Tell them you got lost in the woods. Boone might not believe you, but Eli will help convince him. The story is you and Tom got into a fight, you went for a hike and got lost, although Tom thought you’d left him.”

I let out a cough as ragged as sandpaper.

“Are you okay?” Katherine says.

“I’m fine.” I notice the change in my voice. It’s me, but different. Like a recording that’s been slightly slowed. “Tom is in the Fitzgeralds’ basement. While I don’t know for sure if he’ll go along with your story, I think he will. Now let me untie you.”

It takes a frightening amount of effort to unknot the rope around Katherine’s wrists. Len’s starting to fight me. My hands are awkward and numb, and sudden random thoughts push into my brain.

Don’t do this, Cee.

Please don’t.

I manage to loosen the rope enough for Katherine to do the rest. As she slides her hands from the restraints, I set to work creating my own. It’s not easy. Not with Len getting louder.

Don’t, Cee.

You promised.

My vision has blurred and my depth perception is off.

It feels, I realize, like I’m drunk.

Only this has nothing to do with alcohol. It’s all Len.

With him fighting my every move, it takes me three tries to grasp the rope attached to the anchor. Knotting it around my ankle takes even longer.

“Remember—” I need to pause. Forcing out that single word has left me breathless. “Tell them you got lost. That you don’t know what happened to me.”

“Wait,” Katherine says. “What’s going to happen to you?”

“I’ll be the one missing.”

I pick up the anchor and, before Katherine—or Len—can try to stop me, leap into the chilly depths of Lake Greene.





Water surrounds me.

Cold. Churning. Dark.

So dark.

As dark as death as I hurtle to the lake’s floor. I’d been foolish to think my descent would be gentle—a slow, inexorable drop akin to drifting off into permanent sleep. In truth, it’s chaos. I twist through the black water, the anchor still hugged to my chest. Within seconds I hit bottom, the centuries of sediment collected there doing nothing to lessen the impact.